Just Business
by La Flamingo
Summary: [Post The Endless] It is not natural for mortals to dream of Death and Destruction, the woman tells her. You understand that, don't you?
1. Let's Take a Walk

He cannot say that he is ungrateful for the peace in his realm or the stillness that settles itself like fog over the world, but a slight part of him feels anxious.

Silence and peace come at a price to the Realm of Dream. He knows that this is all too true and a deeper part of him reminds him that there is always something afoot. He need only rise from his throne and seek it out to observe a catalysm of dangerous proportions.

Matthew lands not-so-discreetly to his side, wings fluttering as the once man now bird struggles to maintain balance.

Dream continues to stare out at the broad expanse of the Hall.

**"Problems, Matthew?"**

He is a good servant, and though at his still early tutelage he does have problems, Matthew tries his best to serve well.

Right now, though, the bird seems–pun somewhat intended–rather ruffled.

"It is quiet, Boss," he says, clacking his beak nervously.

"**Nothing from Lucius?"**

Matthew shakes his head. "It's quiet. All the dreams are running their desired courses. Lucius is restocking some new books in the library, Nuala is cleaning. Your realm isn't doing anything."

The last sentence strikes him. Dream finally glances over at the servant, frowning.

"**You do not like it, do you?"**

Matthew flaps his wings on his perch, agitated.

"Don't get me wrong, Boss," he says, fluttering, "I like when something doesn't go wrong here. But considering the recent events and how the realms of your brothers and sisters and that of Reality keeping bumping into each other?" He shakes his head. "It's too quiet. Something is fishy."

Dream cannot help but smile faintly. He raises an eyebrow at Matthew.

"**Desire, maybe?"**

Matthew clacks his beak. "Much as I'd like to say yes, the answer is no."

"**Despair?"**

"She remains still in her world."

The smile vanishes, replaced by a furrowed forehead. "**It is strange that our chief schemers are keeping themselves quiet," **Dream observes. "**Very unusual."**

Matthew nods. "You know I couldn't agree more, Boss."

The two sit in comfortable silence for a long, straining moment before the king of Dream slowly lifts himself from his chair and stretches. Matthew twitches his tail feathers in surprise and looks over expectantly. At the movement, Dream motions outwards with a casual flick of the wrist.

"**Do you think we should take a walk, Matthew?"**

The bird bounces on his post before lifting up, floating along-side his master.

"Even if I said no, Boss, we'd walk anyway."

Dream glances over, amused.

**"You learn quickly, Matthew." **he says, taking measured steps.

"I know," the bird says, exasperated. "I know.


	2. Open Mouth, Insert Foot

**Disclaimer: **_The Sandman_ and all characters associated with it belong to Neil Gaiman and DC Comics. I am only a child who wishes she was a novelist.

**A/N: **I based this story off one of the small tales in the final _Sandman _collection "Endless." In it, Gaiman and company each wrote a small individual story for all the members of the Endless, from Dream and Desire to Destruction and Destiny.

I personally had found Destruction's tale somewhat interesting, and wished to continue on it. The story of the woman archeologist who stumbles across a massive find of the future and--at the same time--runs into Destruction and what I think might be Delirium was cool. I thought that it'd be nice to move on with it.

So there you have it: in order to understand this story you might want to get comfortable with "The Endless" collection of_ The Sandman.  
_

* * *

Business.

The word has an archaic glue to it that sticks to the roof of her mouth, choking up her insides and making her feel faint. She's heard the three-syllable (or two, depending on how you say it) word before, knows the despair that writhes at the bottom of her gut.

One more dig, one more loss. Another San Raphael slapping her in the face.

"It's all business, Rachel," Oliver tells her over the phone. She listens only partially--too busy shuffling the paperwork across her desk--to really hear anything, but the word suddenly catches her attention and she freezes.

Archaic glue and loss.

Yes, it's all a part of the deal, isn't it?

"Just business?" she asks, wiping sweaty black bangs away from her forehead. Fury hovers in the background, just barely hiding behind her eyes and waiting for the opportune moment to strike; Rachel reins it back just barely.

"It's not just business, Oliver. This dig is _huge_. It's, it's–"

"Monumental? Ground-breaking?" Oliver's voice is hard as Antarctic ice and twice as cold as he continues. "I don't think you understand, Rachel, that this company is offering us a lot of money to simply back off. I don't see what your big deal is."

She lets go of the leash. Fury jumps into her mouth without a second thought.

"The big _deal_," Rachel snarls, going back to the papers and violently throwing them around her desk, "is that this could alter history books in the present and future! We're rewriting history here and it needs to be done. _Has _to be done." She stops, breathing slightly heavy, before moving on. "You used to believe in this, Oliver. What happened?"

Another boss, another way of handling the truth. Rachel knows she has just shot herself in the foot but at this moment she doesn't care.

It had to be told.

Oliver doesn't speak for a long moment, but when his voice comes back on the line the sadness is apparent.

"I'm releasing you from this dig, Rachel," he says slowly. "Consider it all _just–_" Rachel hears the bite in the word and winces--"business."

A click, and then nothing.

Rachel is still staring at her papers blankly when she hears the boom outside the trailer and knows that they've begun detonation.

She gently puts the phone back in the cradle and swallows.

_Boom. _

Yes.

It's all _just _business.

* * *

Rachel hits a personal record at nine o'clock as she bulldozes into Drunk-as-a-Skunk mode before nightfall.

Old Rachel would be impressed.

New Rachel just feels sick to her stomach.

The pub is small, quite literally a hole-in-the-wall, and the inhabitants–natives and not understanding who this peculiar woman is–watch her warily. She gazes back blearily, barely focusing on their eyes and instead trying to get some balance together to stand up. One leg tries to position itself on the ground, but suddenly the floor drops and Rachel slams back into her stool, blinking wildly.

The bartender watches her from the behind the counter with a raised eyebrow at the slip, but says nothing.

_Smart move_, she whispers quietly. _God knows what an angry, drunk and unemployed woman in the middle of nowhere is capable of. _

It's another ten minutes before Rachel fools herself into thinking she's sober enough to start walking. The first steps are painful–and she has to stop to twist backwards and throw an undisclosed amount of money on the counter–but after about four staggering footfalls, she finally gets herself to the door and pushes outward.

A wind, lungs still full of the hot Australian summer, breathes in her face as she steps outside into the dusky air and onto this town's pathetic main street. She tried asking Oliver when they first arrived here what the population of the town was, but when he glanced over and said "guess yourself," she realized that it obviously wasn't much.

One of the volunteers would later tell her that it was about one-hundred and six...maybe five since two weeks ago.

_"And what happened two weeks ago?" _Rachel had asked, curious.

The volunteer had given her a pained grimace. _"What will happen to all of us. Death."_

It takes her two stabs before she finally gets the keys in the ignition. The Jeep shudders to a painful start, and Rachel rests her head on the steering wheel.

The job used to be something that she...she believed in. Years ago, she was an idealist, with hopes that uncovering the past was the key to saving the future. History repeated itself, and if there were ways to learn from past mistakes...god, the possibilities could've been endless.

But things change. People change. Rachel saw things that others didn't, and in turn what she thought she believed in only turned out to be...a hoax.

Take San Raphael, for instance.

It's not there anymore. No one knows about it and no one cares. Gone are the big bad F.B.I. type men. Gone are the artifacts that she had puzzled over so carefully.

It's all gone. Vanished, poof, now you see me, now you don't.

Like it never happened.

_It's just business, Rachel_, a part of her hisses cruelly. _All just...business. _

Rachel groggily and dangerously puts the Jeep into gear and squints over the dash at this statement, a part of her reasoning that it's probably time to get her drunk, self-pitying ass back to camp and pack up.

The Jeep shakily pulls out of its spot and weaves down the pathetic excuse for main street, heading down into the darkness beyond the sickening yellow of the florescent street lights. Road dissolves into dirt, and dirt into gravel, and gravel into nothing but bumps that could easily rip up the undercarriage without pause.

The bumps snap up through the car and into her head, shaking her brain and rattling her already precarious focus.

Drunk and on a bumpy ride doesn't do wonders for Rachel. Her already pissed off mood and bad physical stability rapidly begin to detereorate.

Nonetheless, she grips the wheel grimly and pushes on, noticing only vaguely that her headlights are the only ones on the vast, broad expanse of the scrub-land. It's only a half-an-hour later the realization comes as to her desolation, and slowly but surely Rachel's eyelids begin to flicker, exhaustion setting in.

It starts discreetly, almost imperceptibly, but bit by bit, kilometer by kilometer, the Jeep begins to slow.

Kilometer by kilometer Rachel's firm grip on the steering wheel loosens.

Her eyes waver, and her head begins to drop.

Twenty miles outside its desired destination, engine choking briefly before dying and headlights flickering solidly in the grim expanse of night, the Jeep comes to a final stop.

Rachel lies behind the wheel, her face gently pressed against the window.

She now resides in the realm of Dream.


	3. Dreams in Two Parts

_The dreams only started coming back since this dig. _

_After San Raphael, all she had seen had been _him_, with the red ponytail and huge colossal frame. It mildly bothered her that that had been all she had dreamed about_, _but at the same time she knew she was grateful for the respite from death and destruction. She had grown sick and weary of the corpses that circled her in Dreamland. Maybe just seeing the face of a man whose real name she didn't know was a relief. _

_...but maybe she's just saying that because the dream with death and destruction is back. _

_She's back in town, in the real city and up in her bathroom, brushing her hair absently. Rachel hears the distant scream outside and tells herself that _it has begun _but can't compel her body to move. _

_She just continues to brush her hair. _

_Suddenly though, the doorbell rings, and Rachel pauses–evaluating her face in the mirror and the bleakness of it, the dark circles under her eyes and the nobody's home look in her pupils–before slowly putting down the hairbrush and backing out of the bathroom. _

_She's walking towards the door, cinching her robe tighter around herself and reaching for the doorknob when something inside stops her abruptly. _

You don't have a doorbell, _it says, voice razor-sharp. _

_But it's too late. Rachel pivots away from the door, tries to put distance between her and it but suddenly the door slams open and _wham, _there's Stanley, glass shards imbedded in his eyeballs and skin slowly dripping down his face. He's bloody, bleeding from wounds all over his body and she can see that he's missing one leg. _

_He's oblivious. _

_"Hey, Rachel," he says, disintegrating skin and muscles pulling up in a sick macabre smile. "Long time no see."_

_She keeps backing up, keeps moving away from the door and the monster underneath but he–by magic or imagination–is coming towards her, hovering over the carpet. Blood blossoms into tiny roses underneath him, growing up into tiny buds that smell faintly of copper._

_"Get away from me," Rachel says, voice shaking as she brings her hands up defensively. It's difficult not too look into those glass imbedded eyes but she tries so hard not to. _

_Stanley stops halfway to her and something in his posture melts. _

_"Don't you like me?" he says, grass rustling in his throat. "I gave you that job, gave you the dig of your life and that night in the tent–"_

_"We were drunk, you dead bastard," Rachel backs into a wall and stops, panic rising. She sees the lamp on the table next to her and tries to discreetly reach for it. "We were drunk and that was all it was."_

_Stanley's hurt composure evolves into something far more terrifying, and the skin vanishes off his face in an eyeblink, transforming into a perverse display of muscles bending and bunching and twisting to form an enraged snarl. He starts walking again. _

_The flowers under his body open wildly in the profuse of blood raining down on them. The copper smell grows stronger,_

_"All it was?" the voice hisses, furious. "That's all it was?!?"_

_Her grip on the lamp is firm. Rachel bites her lip to keep from screaming and instead focuses on distracting the monster, this ghost of the dead. _

_"Yeah." she says. "You played me for a dumb bitch and I fell for it. That's all it was, and _you know it._"_

_Stanley's close enough now that Rachel can smell his breath, like the sickly sweet odor of death, hovering between them. His arms are raising, getting into that position known universally for strangling, for violence, pain and death, and the raspy grate that serves as his voice goes unnaturally low. The corpse that serves as Stanley lunges at her._

_"You no-good, dirty rotten whor–"_

Wham. _Spinning out his grip, Rachel moves to the side and uses the momentum the move gave her to slam downwards with the glass lamp and bring the base crashing on the monster's skull. _

_Blood sprays. The beast howls. Rachel jerks on the lamp again in another attempt to bring it down, to kill, and suddenly she hears the dull _rip _of the cord come flying out of the wall, taking the plaster with it and leaving a long black scar in the white background. _

_The extra release sends her reeling backwards, falling and tripping over a pair of shoes once lying innocently on the ground. _

_She falls, and in the corner, moaning and writhing Stanley rises, turning. _

_"You're a bitch," he hisses, brain matter pulsing and ebbing through the jagged crack at the top of his skull–her handiwork. Moving up to one stump of a leg, he starts to move towards her again, facial muscles spasming into something she can only imagine is a grin. Rachel tries to move away from the face but to her horror realizes that her legs...can't move. _

_She's stuck. _

_Stanley comes closer, continuing. _

_"But I guess that's why–why I _love _you so much..." he whispers, reaching out. "Why we _must _be together..."_

_Rachel doesn't think. The monster descending on her steals whatever intelligence she had and brings her down to the animal she evolved from._

_Rachel screams._

* * *

"_Sorry about that," a voice says apologetically. _

_It takes her five seconds and eight groggy blinks to realize that she's seated in a lattice-work chair, cradling a mug of coffee in her hands as her arms rest on a café table. _

_The voice butts in again. "You like espresso, right? I hadn't been too sure, so..."_

_Another blink and Rachel discovers that she's not in a café, but is instead residing in...nothingness. _

_Across from her sits a small woman, short black hair drawn up into spikes and a curious insignia drawn under her right eye. At Rachel's confused stare, the woman smiles. _

_"Confused?"_

_Rachel only nods. _

_"This is residual goo leftover from your nightmares," the woman says, motioning around them. Rachel cranes her neck, observing the gray fog that cloaks them in a heavy blanket before looking back down at the tiny woman across from her. _

_"Who–"_

_"I'm Death," the woman says. Rachel stiffens and the woman laughs abruptly, leaning forward and patting her hand reassuringly. _

_"Don't worry. It's not your time yet. But we–"_

_"We?" _

_She nods, elaborating, "–my brother and I were just passing through the neighborhood and noticed _you _were here."_

_Rachel frowns. "That matters because...?"_

_Death moves her hand back to her side of the table and narrows her eyes at Rachel, thinking. _

_"We seem to run into each other a lot," the woman says. "Where you go, my brother seems to inevitably follow."_

_"And when he follows, you come as well?"_

_The woman grins again, eyes twinkling. "Nothing escapes you, does it?"_

_Rachel glances down at her coffee and then decides that–what the hell, this is a dream–she needs a drink. She brings the mug to her lips and sips lightly before placing the cup back down. _

_"No," she finally replies, tapping at the side of her head with a finger. "I'm pretty damn omnipresent."_

_Death chuckles, but says nothing. _

_The two sit in awkward silence for a moment longer before Rachel clears her throat. _

_"So, um...why are you here?"_

_Death twitches and the playful look on her face falls away. She looks at Rachel seriously. _

_"It's not natural for mortals to dream of Death and Destruction," she says. "Your kind dream what the realm wishes you dream, not what _we_ do in our normal time."_

_"Why not?"_

_"You're mortal," Death says, frank. "Isn't that an obvious enough answer?"_

_Rachel pauses for a moment, considering, then shakes her head. Death leans back in her chair at the response and sighs deeply, drumming her fingers on the table. She waits for a painful minute before speaking again. _

_"Your dreams–or nightmares, depending how you see it–transgressed not too long ago into the real world. You saw the dead in the living, did you not?"_

_Flinching, the memories coming back to her in floods, Rachel nods numbly. _

_A frown plays on Death's face, and she shifts uneasily in the chair. Abruptly her gaze skips from Rachel's and suddenly focuses in the background. She stiffens. _

_"That," Death says, slowly pushing out her seat and rising, "is really not good."_

_Noticing that the woman seems to be leaving her, Rachel looks up, alarmed. _

_"Where are you going?"_

_Death's gaze remains fixed in the distance, and she absentmindedly waves a dismissal at Rachel. _

_"I have to go," she says, mechanically moving the chair back under the table, "but this conversation isn't over."_

_Rachel moves upwards, tries to grab at one of the arms of Death's coat but the woman suddenly vanishes, leaving Rachel in a gray fog with a slowly-cooling cup of joe in her hand. _

_"What a shitty dream this is," she mutters to herself, quietly._

_Something suddenly resounds outside the gray world and Rachel freezes. _

"Oh, you have no idea."

Rachel wakes up.


	4. Security System

He should've been expecting it...the silence had lasted too long and the peace to still to be permanent. Both he and Matthew knew it in their bones, each silently acknowledging the truth that Dream and his realm could never be really still, but they had kept the understanding to themselves. 

...sortof.

"You know that this is going to end badly, right?"

Matthew says this only as they move to rest on the Eastern Sands, clearly uneasy with the silence that surrounds them.

Dream likes Matthew's candor–it was one reason he decided on allowing the man to rebirth as the crow–and even now the frankness of the bird amuses him more than anything else.

**"Maybe," **he says, smiling, **"Maybe not. We can always hope, Matthew."**

Matthew snorts but makes no reply.

Only at the strange sound of wind shuttling across the flats that something changes in both the demeanor of Master and Servant and the environment surrounding them.

It starts with Matthew, and a loud groaning noise below his claws.

He stops once, considering this peculiarity, but then the wind whispers by again and the Scar Tree–black as night and gnarled as the knuckles of an old man–abruptly shudders and begins to reel, as if struck.

Matthew immediately jumps off with a loud caw, flapping his wings frantically. Dream glances over, quiet smile dissolving into a frown.

Matthew gingerly sets on his shoulder, careful with his claws. The two remain still for a moment, watching.

Another wind, this time from the west. The tree pauses for a moment, as if thinking, but then a loud shriek emanates deep from inside and the whole organism begins to quake violently.

Dream notices Matthew opening his beak from his peripherals, but cuts in before the bird can even ask.

**"It can sense Endless," **he says quietly. **"That's the only reason it ever...reacts."**

Matthew shifts nervously. "What, is this like a security system?"

**"Of sorts."**

It only takes Matthew a second to come up with the second predicted question.

**"Which Endless?"**

Instead of answering, Dream exhales slowly and rises to his feet, brushing sand off his knees. He waits for a moment, stiffening his jaw and setting his back, before he finally speaks.

**"Hello, Death."**

She appears suddenly, abruptly, and with the faint smell of irises following in her wake. The outfit is the same–the gloves are a little more eccentric than usual–but the only prevailing change is the look on her face.

Death is deathly serious.

"Brother," she says, then nods at Matthew. "Matthew."

There was a pause and great exhalation of breath.

"I have a problem."


	5. Do I Know You?

The archeologist sleeps deeply, clearly caught up in the dream realm. Occasionally a foot twitches, the eyelids flutter and incoherent babbling is heard, but otherwise the woman lies still. 

Destruction watches her from across the fire--light flickering and dancing over her huddled form and playing over his sitting one--and dimly he reminds himself to thank Dream for allowing the woman to sleep so soundly. Morpheus is not always as kind as he is tonight, but–Destruction muses–neither is he.

They all have their flaws and slight quirks. He is no different.

_"Feeling good about this, little brother?"_

_Death isn't skipping as they weave their way past the throes of people in the concourse, but the happy bounce in her walk certainly doesn't go unnoticed. _

_He shoots her an irritated look. _

_"No."_

_The bounce slows for a minute, considering...but then she winds back to her normal speed. _

_"I think you're taking this too seriously," Death says. "It'll just be a few people...nothing major."_

_A snort on Destruction's part. _

_"Destruction," he clips, "is never minor."_

_Another glance from his sister, though this time the worry is only barely hidden behind humor. _

_"Maybe," she muses, "but our mission today won't make headlines. Not the way you normally worry it will."_

_He stops suddenly, abruptly off balance. Death trips over her feet to keep from walking in front of him and frowns when her younger sibling abruptly grabs her arm and pulls her to his side. _

_"No families," he says seriously, amber eyes grave. "You know I will not help you in that."_

_Death gently reaches down and extracts her arm from his hand, patting his forearm carefully. _

_"No family today, brother." At a wary look for him, she reaches up and squeezes his shoulder. _

_"I know how far you will go for your realm right now–" his jaw twitches at this, and Death continues–"but trust me, you won't have to push it. No families today."_

_Conversation fills in the silence between them as Death and Destruction eye each other carefully. A man with a suitcase jostles Destruction and gives an exclamation of disgust, but at the ice cold glare from the six-six, 220 pound beast, quietly peters out and vanishes into the tide of people. Death continues to stare up at him, unblinking. _

_Finally_ _he relaxes, shoulders losing their tension. Death smiles, gives another comforting pat on the shoulder and then motions for them to continue walking. _

_Destruction obeys. _

_It's not until they reach the food court that they start talking again. _

_"So what _is _it," Destruction asks, "that you need me for?"_

_Death frowns for a brief second–the hesitation flickers over her face like a flame–as she searches for an answer. _

_"The mortals," she says, dodging out of the way of a screaming toddler and his older brother, "seem to be getting into a nasty habit of uncovering things that should remain hidden."_

_He instantly thinks _San Raphael _but only asks what would be most obvious. _

_"The realms?"_

_Death shakes her head. "Not quite. More on the bounds of history."_

_Yup. San Raphael. _

_"Destiny?"_

_Her black eyes dart up at him. "Yes." She splits off for a moment–vanishing into the crowd like smoke–before returning as they walk past a McDonald's. He considers asking if she just went off on business but at the look on her face keeps him quiet. _

_"The future keeps appearing where it shouldn't," Death continues, even over the panicked shriek of a woman behind them–"who knows CPR!?!"– that echoes through the food court.. He shoots her a bemused glance but winces when she reaches over and digs a sharp nail into his side. _

_A Rent-a-Cop rushes past Destruction and like a dancer Death dodges to the side. _

_"I'd blame the Endless–" she says, kicking off her last sentence's spring-board. _

_"Desire?" _

_"–but this stinks of Time's family." __She stops abruptly, considering. Destruction jerks to a halt and glances back at her in irritation, but the sister is unmoved; for a long moment she stands there, pursing her lips and tapping her cheek, before she casts a look up at the ceiling and starts moving again. Destruction purposely makes his strides long, forcing his sister to keep up. _

_"Destiny is Time's cousin," she says, frowning as she struggles to match him, "but he doesn't enjoy having the Endless as extended family." At this Death elbows him in the side and winks. _

_"We tend to be a pain in the ass."_

_He knows where this is going and smiles dryly. "While he dies every century and is reborn, always having to rebuild his empire..."_

_"...we continue to live, existing for all of infinity."_ _Death smiles and the barest twinkle of amusement flickers back over her face before she turns serious. _

_"It's a dig, brother." she says, a smile pulling at her lips. "Stop me if you've heard this before. An archeological marvel, something that will rewrite history books..."--she waves her arms dramatically for emphasis, then at his lack of reaction stops--"ring a bell?"_

Yes._ A part of him rumbles._

_"No."_

_She prods him with an elbow again and grabs his hand, forcing him to slow down and walk her gait. "You lie." Death says, eyes narrowed. "You lie like a rug."_

_He considers being insulted, but at the mortal slang laughs. _

_"'Lie like a rug'?"_

_She blinks owlishly, as if hurt. "What, you haven't heard that before?"_

_Destruction shakes his head. "No, I've heard it, but I never expected mortal slang from _you_, one of the more mature of our siblings."_

_She snorts. "Maturity has the tendency to be overrated," and then there's a wry grin, "just look at Desire."_

_Now he snorts. _

_"Desire's a prick."_

_She raises an eyebrow. "Mortal slang from you, dear brother?"_

_He shoots her an irritated look but says nothing. They walk in silence for a few moments longer before Death speaks. _

_"I know about San Raphael, Destruction." _

_He freezes, and Death rolls her eyes. _

_"Don't act so surprised, brother," she says, looking caught between amusement and seriousness. "I had to go there, too," and suddenly the humor vanishes from her face. "Just because you destroy them doesn't mean they're dead...and I'm the clean-up crew, remember?"  
_

_He initiates the walk this time, but listens as she continues. _

_"We have to get rid of that site and those in the camp before the future gets out," Death slowly tells him this, careful of his earlier reaction, "because if we don't, Destiny's gonna have a helluva lot of trouble reading his book...and you know that being blind didn't help his situation in the first place."_

_Destruction clears his throat. _

_"It's that big, huh?"_

_She nods, a sad look on her face. "Yeah. Really that big."_

The slights sounds of waking pull him out of his reverie and then abruptly Destruction blinks, realizing that the sleeping form across from him is reaching the point of waking.

She didn't fall asleep outside next to a fire.

She didn't start a fire.

She hasn't seen the man sitting across from her in over three years.

This woman will be very disgruntled upon coming to reality.

He braces himself for the attack that will inevitably follow as her body slowly shifts, turning, and then freezes, muscles stiff as the mind realizes that something is there that wasn't there before.

Eyes stare out from a blanketed head at him in confusion. They narrow, blink a few times, and then narrow again.

She finally speaks.

"Hey," the woman–Rachel–says, voice sounding sleepy and bewildered, "do I know you?"


End file.
